A woven basket that looks like the shape of a pear. The top is round and left open. It is woven with a light brown material that looks like dried grass. There are gaps between the weaves to make the basket see-through.

Mindi

Leeching basket made from plant fibre loosely woven with a string handle, circa 1885. Created by the Nywaigi or Warrgamay people from the herbert River region in far North Queensland. The mindi measures 32.0cm x 17.0cm x 11.0cm.

Museum number: ETB.1069

Read about this object from the perspective of

a Wiradjuri librarian

A map of the Level 2 galleries of the museum. The map is an outline of a floor plan diagram. The Greece gallery is to the middle left. There is a staircase in the middle. The Egypt gallery is to the middle right.

A Wiradjuri librarian's interpretation

I have been in weaving spaces where people are generous with their stories and are open to information they would normally run away from. There is a vulnerability and intimacy in the space where hands are busy. I believe that lives in what is being woven and that the woven belonging holds the stories being shared and becomes part of those stories going forward and going back.

Nathan “mudyi” Sentance is a Wiradjuri librarian and museum educator who grew up on Darkinjung Country. Nathan currently works at the Powerhouse Museum as Head of Collections, First Nations and writes about history, critical librarianship and critical museology from a First Nations perspective. His writing has been previously published in the Guardian, British Art Studies, Cordite Poetry, and Sydney Review of Books and on his own blog The Archival Decolonist.

Hear more from Nathan:

Archival Decolonist

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